Living Magazine: HOME OF THE YEAR 2011
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Transcript of Living Magazine: HOME OF THE YEAR 2011
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36 LIVING-MAGAZINE.COM JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2011
HOME & GARDEN
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JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2011 LIVING-MAGAZINE.COM 37
Ali and Guhaina Sharaf and
their four children, Mohamad,
Dena, Salma and Jude, are not
strangers to the Ellis County
area. For the past 17 years,
they’ve lived in Ovilla. But on
the fi rst day of fall 2010, they
moved into a new Tuscan-
style house off of Ovilla Road.
“We wanted to stay in Ovilla.
We really like the city—it’s qui-
et, nice and safe and we really
like the neighbors,” Guhaina
said.
“Jim Johnson built the fi rst
home we lived in 17 years
ago,” Ali said. “We enjoyed
that house and felt he did a
great job.”
Since they enjoyed his work
so much, they hired him to
build their new home. The
Sharafs feel there’s a lot of tal-
ent in Ellis County and wanted
to stick with local builders and
sub-contractors. Once Jim
Johnson started working on
the home, it took two years to
build, including all of the out-
side amenities. He said that
considering all of the extras
the house has, like a lake, pa-
vilion, water well and resort-
like landscaping, the process
would usually take much lon-
ger.
“The Sharafs made quick
decisions and we all worked
very well together as a team,”
Jim said. “This helped in keep-
ing the construction process
moving.”
Though the process
moved quickly, it was
not without a few mi-
nor diffi culties here and
there. For Jim, one of
the biggest challenges
was coordinating more
than 50 workers on
site during some days.
They also imported a
lot of limestone from
Syria that was installed
in the courtyard, on the
exterior and inside the
home.
“Designing, measuring,
ordering, waiting for
months on this lime-
stone and then adapt-
ing the pieces that did
not fi t exactly right was
a bit of a challenge,” Jim said.
They built the house on the
land the Sharafs have owned
for 12 years, which used to be
the old Ovilla campground
from 1904 to 1958. A few
years ago, a neighbor brought
by a plate with a picture of
what the campground looked
like. They’ve kept many of the
trees on the property, most of
which have been growing for
more than 100 years.
For the Sharafs, one of the
main challenges was deciding
exactly where on the land to
build the home. Their previ-
ous house sat on the prop-
erty right where the Sharafs
wanted to build. They had
to decide whether to keep
the old house and use it as a
guest house or tear it down
and build the new one.
Another challenge the Sharafs
faced was deciding on a style
of the house.
“We wanted a Tuscan style; we
were in Italy two years before
we built the house and drove
through Tuscany and saw a lot
of houses there,” Ali said. “We
liked the style but at the same
time, our background is from
Syria and we liked the old Da-
mascus style of houses. We
wondered, “how can we mar-
ry the two to where they can
hug each other in harmony?”
HOME OF THE YEAR 2011
GUHAINA & ALI
SALMA, JUDE, MOHAMAD, DENA
BY KATE MCCLENDON
PHOTOS BY KEVIN HAISLIP • WWW.HAISLIPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
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38 LIVING-MAGAZINE.COM JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2011
And then we came up with the Mediter-
ranean style.”
Since the Mediterranean style encom-
passes a few other styles, including Ro-
man, they used that to infl uence the rest
of the decisions throughout the house by
mixing old and new pieces and styles to
make something unique and comfortable.
While they worked to design the layout of
the house, the Sharafs had a few things in
mind. Since they have four children rang-
ing in ages from 4 months to 16 years,
they wanted each child to have their own
bedroom. Guhaina’s mother also stays
with the family for four to fi ve months each
year, so they wanted to have a space for
her where she would be comfortable.
Ali also wanted a game room that was
separated from the house, but Guhaina
came up with the idea to attach the game
room to the house rather than have a sep-
arate building. This created a courtyard in
the middle of the house that Guhaina fi lled
with a Damascus look by importing stone
from a city near Syria.
Jim coordinated a team of architects, de-
sign fi rms, landscaping architects and en-
gineers and made sure everything came
together perfectly for the Sharafs.
The layout of the house is ideal for en-
tertaining, as it is open throughout most
of the fi rst fl oor, with a courtyard in the
front and large, motorized sliding doors
along the back leading out to a huge pa-
tio, pool area and luscious backyard. The
family hosted an event for Governor Rick
Perry two weeks before the November
elections, which marked Perry’s fi rst trip
to Ovilla. He commented that the back-
yard reminded him of the south of France,
which was a great compliment to Ali.
The kitchen, breakfast area and living
area are where family and guests tend to
gather, and it’s no surprise considering
Guhaina’s excellent cooking skills. She
cooks three meals a day, every day, mix-
ing American, Mediterranean and Syrian
styles together.
“Guhaina is a great cook; she’s phenom-
enal,” Ali said. But Ali is not without his
own specialty. “I added the pizza oven,” he
said. “That’s my part of the cooking.” Us-
ing a recipe from an Italian friend’s grand-
mother, Ali makes Napoli-style pizza from
scratch in the built-in brick pizza oven.
The family has a garden outside the home
where they grow organic herbs, cucum-
bers, zucchini, lettuce, tomato, eggplant,
cabbage and more. Often, if they make
salad for dinner, they’ll go into the garden
to collect the fresh ingredients.
Another feature in the dream kitchen is
the commercial-grade vent-a-hood.
HOME & GARDEN
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JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2011 LIVING-MAGAZINE.COM 39
Since the house is open and the kitchen is
in the center, the smell of what’s cooking
tends to go throughout the entire house.
With the vent-a-hood, no one can smell
what’s going on in the kitchen.
To tie the interior of the house to the exte-
rior and the property, Ali wanted to bring
the inside out and the outside in.
“I’m a civil engineer and builder and I do
a lot of commercial building,” Ali said. “I
like to build outside-of-the-box stores and
I enjoy the different materials that can cre-
ate a look. I do it in an artistic way so it all
works in harmony between brick, stone,
marble and stucco.”
They continued the theme of mixing styles
into the furniture and artwork inside the
house. Some pieces are local and some
are foreign. The breakfast area table was
designed by Guhaina and custom made
locally. It’s made up of three different ta-
bles that fi t together and can seat three to
four people at each one. So for larger par-
ties, you can put two tables together for 12
people or all three tables together for 16.
“We planned to have a breakfast area that
was warmer since we use it more than the
formal dining room,” Guhaina said.
Though they may use the breakfast area
more often, both Guhaina and Ali said
the dining table was their favorite piece
of furniture in the house. Ali has a friend
in Venice who owns a furniture company,
which is where they found the table. It is
one solid piece that measures 20 feet by
fi ve and a half feet and can seat 24 peo-
ple. Guhaina was happy when they fi nally
found it since she had been looking for a
dining table in Dallas for almost a year and
hadn’t found anything that was perfect.
Their favorite piece of artwork in the
home came from their landscape archi-
tect, David Baldwin, who is also an artist.
He surprised the family with a painting of
a fl ower and, if you look really closely, you
can see the family’s names incorporated
into the background.
While the family had help with some of the
interior design and decorating aspects,
Guhaina contributed a lot to the look and
feel of the house. With her artistic eye,
she picked out most of the colors and the
marble in the house. She was also able to
blend modern furniture with some pieces
from Damascus.
“She is very artistic,” Ali said. “I trust her
taste; she knows how to pick colors.”
Guhaina loved choosing the colors and
wanted everything to look just right. They
had to change the color in the dining
room fi ve times to achieve the perfect col-
or. They also wanted to keep all the colors
throughout the house soft and warm to
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40 LIVING-MAGAZINE.COM JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2011
create a homey and comfortable atmosphere.
The family’s travels have had the most infl uence on their de-
sign style—they’ve visited more than 40 countries. As they
visit different places, Guhaina says they collect ideas along
the way. They’ll see a window somewhere and think, “we
want that one day in our home.”
In the two years it took to build and the three months the
family has lived in the home, they’ve been very appreciative
of the local team that put the house together, the neighbors
and the beauty of the area.
“Ellis County, and Ovilla in particular, present an opportunity
for those who would like to discover living in this beautiful
county,” Ali said. “When people come to visit me from dif-
ferent parts of the country, they are amazed because of how
beautiful it is. Because there is a special magic in this quiet,
beautiful city and the people are above and beyond. They’re
friendly, good neighbors.”
BUILDING INNOVATIONSJim and the Sharafs wanted to incorporate many of the latest
innovations available for residential construction. They made
the house a “smart home” by installing touch screens through-
out the house that can control music, cameras, gate opera-
tion, lights, the intercom system and more.
“A smart phone or an iPad can be used to control the home
systems from anywhere in the world,” Jim said, which can keep
the house safe and protected even when the family is away.
As a certifi ed green professional and a graduate master
builder, Jim wanted to keep the house as “green” as possible
and the Sharafs were on board. They recycled the lumber and
used it as mulch, incorporated several water management
systems and dug a water well to help fi ll the lake, which is then
used for irrigating the landscaping and grass. They also in-
stalled tankless water heaters that don’t turn on until there is a
demand for hot water.
Inside the house, the HVAC system has variable speed air
conditioners and furnaces to control temperature, humidity
and fresh air exchange. Instead of a vented crawl space, the
home’s crawl space is sealed, which keeps out hot, humid air,
eliminating condensation, musty smells, mildew and mold.
“The attic is also a fully encapsulated attic,” Jim said. “The in-
sulation has been moved from the ceilings of the rooms up
to the rafters. This means that we do not have a “hot attic.”
The attic temperature stays around 75 to 80 degrees year-
round. The ductwork in the attic and in the crawl space is now
located in totally conditioned area which makes it much more
effi cient. We used spray foam insulation in the crawl space,
walls and rafters so that the home is fully encapsulated with
foam insulation. This along with the house wrap means that
most, or all, of the air leaks are sealed and provides for a very
high R-value envelope.”
Also, the air inside the home is exchanged every two hours
to bring in fresh air and get rid of stale air. With some tight
homes, fresh air is not circulated into the home and the stale
air inside the house can become polluted and harmful to the
homeowners. The air exchange is done in an energy-effi cient
way with the use of ERVs.
Other “green” innovations include high-effi ciency appliances,
a durable tile roof, high-effi cient wood windows with smart
glass and wiring that is ready in case the Sharafs want to
incorporate a solar-powered system. The home tested well
above the energy star rating.
HOME & GARDEN